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Friday, March 11, 2011

Another wet one….

Another dull, gray, wet day…at least it was only ‘raining’ and not ‘pouring’ when we went for our walk…

Common Mergansers

a bit more variety in ducks…this group of 5 female Common Merganser (a male joined them later)…a few Buffleheads, 2 Green wing Teal and 4 Mallards…all down at far end…none at the log bay…maybe because of the Bald Eagle perched there.  The Marsh Wren were singing their little hearts out….I guess a ‘buzzy trill’ is the best way to describe their song.

Once again there was lots of activity in the bushes and trees near the viewing platform…in fact the place was dripping with little birds….

Bushtit

Bushtits (sorry for the fuzziness but I’m surprised it turned out this good!). Golden crowned Kinglets, Black Cap Chickadee’s and

Chestnutback Chickadee

Chestnut backed Chickadees….along with Robins, Varied Thrush and

Spotted Towhee

Spotted Towhee – this is the best time of the year to get pictures of these guys so might as well keep taking them…

Now for something a little different….I thought it would be interesting to show you some ‘comparison’ pictures showing where water levels are today…and where they were on March 12th, 2007… I’m doing this today and not on the 12th because I don’t always get to my computer on weekends. 

south

Today’s picture would be considered normal water levels for this time of year for this area…

and south

This is the same area in 2007.

log bay

the log bay today March 11’11

the log bay

and on March 12, ‘07

If I remember correctly….this water came up very suddenly…almost overnight…it was a high snow level year and then a very warm, wet system moved over the province bringing lots of rain and melting snow all up through the Fraser River and Harrison watersheds – which, of course, ultimately effects our water levels here…

bay

This is the bay by the viewing platform today….

looking back

and on March 12, 2007 it was ‘full to the brim’..

grasslands

the path across the grasslands today (please ignore the rain running across the lens)…

mergansers on the flats

and the same area then…..The surprising thing, apart from how fast all that water appeared…is how quickly it again disappeared…I’ll post comparison pictures for the next little while.  All this did signal the start of a ‘high water’ but not a ‘flood’ year.

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